EMERGE

Our Program

The EMERGE Reentry pilot initiative is an innovative educational reentry program facilitated as a partnership between The Mentoring Center (TMC), The National Black Women’s Justice Institute (NBWJI), Alameda County Office of Education (ACOE), and Laney College. The program is for young women in Alameda County, ages 16-18, who are returning to school from a condition of confinement or incarceration. The EMERGE Reentry Program began in February 2016 with a full program launch, with the goals of repairing reentering girls’ relationships with school, recovering missing school credits toward their completion of a high school diploma, and facilitating their enrollment in an institution of higher learning and/or permanent employment. Ultimately, this program is designed to facilitate a “confinement to college and career” pathway for young women.

Using a healing-informed, strengths-based, gender-responsive continuum of learning for girls, this program is simultaneously responsive to girls’ learning objectives and career goals through an integrated learning curriculum that provides the rigors of instructional and academic dialogue. This project includes a collaborative teaching model that seeks to frame the academic successes of girls in trouble with the law as not only a critical part of their healing and reentry after a period of confinement or incarceration, but also as an act of social justice.

The goals of the program are aligned with both the problem of the disrupted and damaged relationship that the affected population has with school, and with the needs that these girls and young women have that have contributed to and resulted from their confinement. The specific goals of the program are to:

Repair girls’ relationships with school,

Provide opportunities for accelerated credit recovery toward their completion of a high school diploma,

Facilitate their enrollment in an institution of higher learning and/or permanent employment. Ultimately, this program is designed to facilitate a “confinement to college and career” pathway for young women,

Create a trauma-responsive environment that advances social and emotional learning and healing.

Our Partners

EMERGE is a collaboration among (4) core partners:

The Mentoring Center

The Mentoring Center is the lead agency for the EMERGE Program, and is responsible for implementation of the model, as one of TMC’s core programs. The EMERGE staff is employed with TMC, and provides daily operation of the program, as well as strategic and programmatic oversight.

The National Black Women’s Justice Institute (NBWJI)

The NBWJI, led by Dr. Monique Morris, is a lead partner in EMERGE, providing research and evaluation for the program. The concept for EMERGE is based on Dr. Morris’ research on the educational experiences of girls and Black girls specifically, in confinement.

The Alameda County Office of Education (ACOE)

The ACOE is the lead educational partner for EMERGE, through the Quest Academy Program. Our students, enrolled in Quest through EMERGE, are able to access accelerated credit recovery towards their high school graduation.

Girls Inc.

Our Supporters

The EMERGE Reentry Program is grateful to have the generous support of the following foundations:

The Akonadi Foundation
The California Endowment
The Oakland Chapter of the Links
The Lowell Berry Foundation
The NoVo Foundation
The San Francisco Foundation

Support EMERGE

Your donations are critical
in helping us support our girls.

Please consider becoming a
recurring donor for our girls.

Your support ensures that our girls continue to learn in a safe, healing environment that they can call their own.

Your dollars go towards everything from supportive, trained and caring staff,
to school supplies and equipment,
to necessities that make sure that
we’re meeting our girls’ basic needs, including
food, clothing and temporary shelter.